Communities

Public Art and Community Engagement

We engage and educate communities to act in more sustainable ways using public art and art-making activities. Emotional commitment precedes behavioral change, so we create that emotional connection to climate issues, alongside science data, to motivate people to conserve energy, use more renewables, reduce waste, and prepare for extreme weather events.

We partner with local agencies, non-profits, and private sector to bring public art, workshops, behavioral programs, and educational activities for mitigation and preparedness to communities.

Sponsorships: Be visible in your community…contact us to learn how you can connect to your community in a meaningful way.

Follow our installations in our News section.

Video by Brandon Lewis of Boston University

ASK

Call us to use ASK in your advocacy efforts NOW! We will loan you a set for you and your organization to wear to public events as a catalyst for conversations. 617-276-2490 or Info@ClimateCreatives.com.

What would you ask a scientist about climate change? What do people need to know to move them to action? We decided to find out, and created ASK. Scientists and non-scientists (you can insert your own identity) are donning the ASK pith helmet and signboards and roaming events of various types, answering questions and handing out inspiration action cards. Our data postcards show how small numbers add up to big ones when everyone conserves energy and we install solar panels and wind turbines. We found that people often feel that their actions cannot make an impact on such a huge problem, so we are here to tell

everyone that our actions matter! We are now deploying ASK in multiple states through November 2016 - contact us to be part of it (no charge to participate)!

Many Thanks to the German Embassy and the Transatlantic Climate Bridge for their support!

HarborArts, in East Boston Shipyard and Marina. The installation marks future high tide lines with brightly colored lines on a dock that show a predicted 2’-6’ sea level rise at that site. The intention of the installation is to elicit a visceral recognition of where water will be when sea levels rise. Rising Tides has continued to evolve and grow, and now includes fresh water flooding.

Make a Missing Pet poster for an endangered species! We draw a line between animals who live indoors with us (by invitation!) and wild animals, but we need all of the biodiversity we can hold onto. Make a MISSING! pet poster of a local endangered animal or a charismatic global species. Then take it home, copy it, and become a guerrilla artist in your own neighborhood. Launched spring 2016 with Harvard Museum of Natural History and Harvard College Conservation Society at Harvard ArtsFirst and ArtWeek Boston, at Mary Baker Eddy Library vacation camp, and at the YouthCAN Summit at MIT. We can provide you with all materials to do your own MISSING workshop, or we can bring it to you.

Message-in-a-Bottle:

A companion piece of Rising Tides, Message-In-A-Bottle, was a call and response piece to encourage reflection and dialogue about sea level rise. Message-in-A-Bottle can be used in any context, and we have brought it back in different scales and formats. Susan Israel took a turn as host at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Living Room Project by artist Lee Mingwei, and brought the bottles to an intimate setting where people left their thoughts about sea level rise. We brought it to the New England Campus Sustainability Forum at UMass as a table top exercise at a busy conference and can incorporate it into any of your events.

TReecycle

TReecycle wraps trees with photographs of recycling heaps taken at Save That Stuff. I was struck with how much we waste one day when I was looking for materials, and thought about what natural resources are used in making this garbage. TReecycle has been installedat Old Frog Pond Farm, Around the Pond and Through the Woods, 2014, and Studio Without Walls along the Muddy River, Brookline in 2013. TReecycle is available for installation upon request.

Curating/Producing:

We curate and produce group exhibitions with sustainability themes. CrossRoads, on the Fenway, 2014,and Energy Necklace at Jackson Homesteadin Newton, 2013, were our group shows of outdoor installations and sculpture by New England artists.

Other Works: Susan Israel’sinstallations appear in group exhibitions regularly in eastern Massachusetts, always connecting her climate change messaging with the exhibition theme.

Some exhibitions where her work has appeared:

Old Frog Pond Farm Sculpture Walk, Harvard, MA. Around the Pond and Through the Woods Sculpture Walk, annual fall show.

The Pingree School Flying Horse, Hamilton, MA

Studio Without Walls, Spring annual show on the Muddy River, Brookline, MA.

We’ve been at this for awhile…some of our very early sustainability exhibit/events…

Earth Day Ball

National Toxics Campaign hosted this Earth Day Ball at the Boston Cyclorama. Their message -to stop dumping toxics down the drain- was to be conveyed in a party venue, which led us to create a whimsical setting with a serious message. We built a “global Village” collage surrounding the room, and featured sculptural vignettes, such as a bathtub with Boston Harbor projected into it, with specific information about how to reduce use of toxins. We used reclaimed materials throughout, such as discarded cable spools for tables. The large event featured Willie Nelson and other top musicians.

Beyond ShelterFor Friends of Boston’s Long Island Shelter for the Homeless, as a board member and Artistic Director for annual art events called “Beyond Shelter,” we created these and several other art installations. These fundraising events were built around large multiartist installations about homelessness which generated awareness, press, attendance and donations. The piece shown here was our own: an eighty foot long sculptural wall which contrasted items which are iconographic to living in a home or on the street: being inside or outside of the wall. The piece also examined the nature of loss and reconstruction while referring to specific projects of the FBLIS.